Inside Castro's Prisons

Armando Valladares was a 23-year-old minor bureaucrat in Cuba's Ministry of Communications when the police arrested him in December 1960. The charge: "counterrevolutionary activity" because he had publicly criticized Fidel Castro's increasing dependence on the Soviet Union. Although he had supported Castro's 1959 overthrow of Dictator Fulgencio Batista, Valladares was, after a two-hour trial, sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. During his confinement, Valladares began to record images and thoughts on the torn-off margins of Castro's official newspaper, Granma. Some of these fragments, which were smuggled out of prison in dirty laundry and sent out of Cuba in toothpaste tubes, were published in Spanish as two books of poems, From My Wheelchair (1977) and The Heart in Which I Live (1980). Prefaced by a long introduction, a collection of some of those same poems, together with many of the prisoner's letters, was published in French as a third volume, Castro's Prisoner (1979). These works established his literary reputation internationally. Last October, thanks to the efforts of French President Fran&3231;ois Mitterrand and the Spanish writer Fernando Arrabal, among others, Castro agreed to release Valladares. He now lives in Madrid, where he spends his time writing. He also runs Internationale de la Resistance, a Paris-based human rights organization that he helped found earlier this year. The group's purpose, he says, is to support the overthrow of all dictators. Following is Valladares' first extensive English-language account of his experiences during almost 22 years in Castro's jails. His narrative is accompanied by illustrations that he drew himself on cigarette papers and that he later managed to smuggle out of prison.

I had not committed any offense. Moreover, nothing was found when my home was searched: neither explosives, nor arms, nor compromising documents. However, the police officers who interrogated me said that despite the absence of material evidence they were convinced that I was a potential enemy of the revolution. The real reason for my imprisonment was that I had constantly warned my friends and compatriots against a Communist takeover of our country. Because I always refused to repudiate my ideas, I was systematically beaten, kept in solitary confinement, physically and mentally tortured. My mind and my hands still bear the traces. I saw my companions tortured; I was both witness to and victim of a violent and ruthless penitentiary system.